The Spellcoats (18 page)

Here came the hem, drawn up above Kankredin's fat vague foot in a dirty sandal. The rest was on the back of the gown. I could have screamed.

I had to get Kankredin to stand up and turn round. I have never been so determined about anything. I looked at Duck and turned my hand round inside my sleeve, hoping that Kankredin would not notice. Duck understood. He had been trying to read Kankredin's gown, too, but he is slower than me, and he could see I was devouring it. So he gave me his daft look, which is his private way of saying, Yes, but it's not easy, and turned to Kankredin's two mages.

“Do you do illusions? Can you make yourselves look like somebody else?” I knew he was trying to find out if any of them had been disguised as Tanamil, and I wondered if I dared to shake my head at him. I was sure the back of Kankredin's robe would tell me.

Kankredin and his two mages gave out sounds of disgust. But this is exactly what they would do if they did not want us to know. Duck did not see it that way.

“Yes, but can you?” he said. “Can you stand up and show me?”

Kankredin saw there was some trick in this. He was terrifying clever. For a moment the fat shape of his face became near and clear to see. His thick lids folded down over his eyes, and he stared at Duck. Duck, for the first time, was troubled by his power. The front of his coat heaved as he grasped the Lady, and he gasped. “That'll teach you to bother me with silly questions,” said Kankredin. “Won't it? Eh?”

At this, I thought suddenly: Why is he bothering to talk to us at all? He thinks we're just silly children. I looked at Hern, and Hern was beginning to look the way Gull had looked.

“Stop it!” I said. “Leave my brother's soul alone!”

“Not I,” said Kankredin. “There's some strangeness in this soul.” He looked full at Hern. Hern put his hands to his face as if he felt giddy.

Duck and I were both terrified. Duck took Hern's arm and pulled him away across the room. And Kankredin sprang out of his chair in a wave of cold air, roaring that Duck was not to meddle.

The next part was very horrible. I had a perfect opportunity to read Kankredin's back, but it was at Hern's expense. And it came to me then that if Kankredin's gown told the truth—and I think it did, as far as Kankredin knew the truth—Hern's soul, and mine, and Duck's were all like Gull's and could be used the same way. Kankredin stared under his fat lids at Hern, and Hern leaned against Duck, shaking. Duck put both arms round Hern and pressed the Lady against him so that they both had a bruise for days. At the same time, he says, he was willing Hern's soul with all his might to look normal—like Korib the miller's son's, like Aunt Zara's, even like Zwitt's. And I read Kankredin's broad back for dear life.

Thus I, Kankredin, mage of mages, know how to rule the very soul of this land's soul. The river tries to keep the lad's soul from me, but I have bound the lad to come to me. I feel him approaching. He is near. By the power of these words and the hands of my mages, I now erect a soulnet across the mouths of the river wherein shall lodge the souls of all those dead in the land. These my mages collect daily. They shall be captive to me and learn to do my bidding, and I shall not suffer them to go out over the sea to their last home. But the lad who is coming to me will lodge in the net in his own body. Then through him I shall draw forth the soul behind the river's soul. When I have it, I shall come up the river, rolling it before me like a wave of the sea, and the land will lie captive at my feet. I, Kankredin, have spoken.

I did not read his sleeves. They seemed to be spells from much longer ago. “Duck! Let's go!” I shrieked.

Kankredin turned and looked under his fat lids at me. I did not think we would be able to go.

“There's no mystery about us,” I said. “We—we have to catch up with Kars Adon.”

“That's right,” Duck said quickly. “Take a look at our souls. Can't you see we're quite open and honest?”

“I've looked at your souls,” said Kankredin. “Empty things they are. Suspiciously empty. His is not.” He pointed to Hern.

“He's older than us,” I said. “And I admit you're doing quite right to wrestle with the River. I think you're very clever. I think—” I would have said anything, anything.

Kankredin laughed at me, with his cruel chuckle, and looked at his two mages. “What shall we do?”

“They're absolute idiots,”
hidden death
said, but he said it with a sour kind of slyness, meaning something else.

“Exactly,” said Kankredin, agreeing to this something else. “All right,” he said to us. “If you can get back through the net again, you're free to go. Go and try. I shall enjoy watching you.”

I do not remember going out through the room with the hammocks. I think Kankredin hurled us out on deck, where Hern staggered about.

“You get the boat cast off,” I said to Duck. “I'll bring Hern.” I thought it would be like Gull all over again.

But Hern is tougher than Gull. As Duck raced down the black decking, Hern pushed me away and dived at the baskets ranged against the side. “You do the other side!” he shouted. He went staggering up the whole row, throwing up the lids. I am still amazed at Hern thinking of the trapped souls. But he must have known what they felt like. I threw back wicker lids on the other side of the ship. The roaring wings of the escaping souls mixed with the angry yells of the mages.

Kankredin's voice boomed through it all. “Let them be. We shall take vengeance for that.”

The mages left us alone and stood watching as we went down into our boat. I took the tiller. We moved away from the staring eyes of the ship, before all the staring faces of the mages lining the side of it, and two more sitting staring in the soulboat nearby. We felt the jeers in the staring, but there seemed nothing we could do except sail for the net.

I was too shaken to manage the boat well, and the tide was against us. Duck took out an oar to help, but we still drifted crankily sideways. We could see mouth after mouth of the River passing behind the great black net, until the black ship looked small behind us. Then at last we drifted up against the net. A soul or two struggled in it above our heads, and we were just the same, going the opposite way.

Kankredin's voice boomed across the water. “Go on! Go through the net!” We knew he was playing cat and mouse with us.

“He'll fetch us back in a minute,” said Hern. “We can't get through.”

“We can try this,” said Duck. He put the oar away and carefully took out of his shirt the pipes Tanamil had made for him. He saw the way I looked at him. He said, “I'm almost sure Tanamil isn't one of them. And it's worth a try even if it's using their own enchantment against them. Keep us going for the net.”

Duck put the pipes to his mouth and played. His music was nothing like Tanamil's. It was bold and jerky and full of breath. But he had scarcely played half a tune when I looked up at the net and found its blackness misted over, with mist beyond.

Kankredin's voice boomed out. “Duck! Stop that silly piping. Stop it!”

Duck faltered and lost the tune. The net swung before me, black and clear. “Go on,” I said. “It works!”

“I can't,” said Duck. “Not with him shouting at me.”

“Duck! Come here to me!” Kankredin boomed.

Hern looked up. “He's not shouting at you. Your name's Mallard. Keep playing, and don't be a fool. He's worried stiff we're getting away.” Hern was right. The two mages in the soulboat were poling toward us as fast as they could go.

Duck played again, fierce and squeaky with haste. His face was red with it. The net turned from black to gray, and then it was not there. We were moving forward in whiteness. In a moment, as before, there were birds all round us that we could not see. This time we were heartily glad of it. Duck played and played us forward into whiteness, until at last he had to leave off and lean over, panting. By then the net was behind us some way and the wide sands of the Rivermouth in front.

“You did it!” I said. “How did you know?”

Duck wiped the pipes and put them carefully away. “Everything goes away like that quite often when I play,” he said. “I thought I was out of breath the first time. You know, I think I shall be a magician when I grow up. I shall be a better one than Kankredin.”

“Hey! Tanaqui! Look where you're sailing!” said Hern.

He was a little late saying it. I was looking at Duck. We ran deep aground in a reed flat with our keel down, and we stuck. This was how we came to be captured by our own people. Maybe it was Kankredin's malice. I am sure it was my fault for leaving the One in his fire.

I am now at the back hem of my rugcoat. All I have space to say is that we are at a stand. Gull is still a clay figure. Robin is ill. I am afraid she will die. I sit with her in the old mill across from Shelling, with no help from my gloomy brothers. Even if Robin were well enough for us to run away, Zwitt would have us killed if he found us on our own. It is a bad thing to wish to run away from our own King, but I wish I could. Instead all I can do is weave and hope for understanding. The meaning of our journey is now in this rugcoat. I am Tanaqui, and I end my weaving.

THE SECOND COAT

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